Lilith 1840

Wer? —Adams erste Frau.¹

Faust

I

Ages ago, when Adam lived on earth,

First man, first monarch, strong in limb and mind,

In whom a glorious beauty was combined

With thoughts of fire; when sin had not gone forth,

As a wide pestilence, among mankind,

Dulling the senses to the healing worth

Of woods, and waves, and sunshine unconfined,

Which then were audible with song and mirth,

Lilith had being. She was one of those

Shadowy spirits, from that twilight bred

Wherewith, at first the world was overspread:

But, three great periods past, the sun arose,

And one by one her sister spirits fled,

And she remained, hid in a cavern close.

II

There was a broad, still lake near Paradise,

A lake where silence rested evermore:

And yet not gloomy, for, along the shore,

Majestic trees, and flowers of thousand dyes,

Drank the rich light of those unclouded skies:

But noiseless all. By night, the moonshine hoar,

And stars in alternating companies;

By day, the sun: no other change it wore.

And hither came the sire of men, and stood

Breathless amid the breathless solitude:

Shall he pass over? Inconceivable,

And unconjectured things perhaps might dwell

Beyond—things, haply, pregnant with new good—

He plunged: the waters muttered where he fell.

III

And on, and on, with broad, untiring breast,

The swimmer cleft the waters. As he went,

Things full of novelty and wonderment

Rose up beside him. Here it was the crest

Of a steep crag, up to the heavens sent.

And here a naked pine trunk, forward bent

A hundred yards above him: still no rest,

Onwards and onwards still the swimmer pressed.

But now the lake grew narrower apace:

The father shore curving nearer in:

Till, at the last, there towered before his face

A wall of rock, a final stopping-place:

But no—an opening! Shall he pass therein,

The way unknown, the day now vespertine?

IV

He entered in. How dim! how wonderful!

High-arched above, and water paved below;

And phosphor cressets, with a wavering glow,

Lit up the mighty vault. A whisper cool

Ran muttering all around him, and a dull,

Sweet sound of music drifted to and fro,

Wordless, yet full of thought unspeakable,

Till all the place was teeming with its flow.

‘Adam! —Strong child of light!’ — ‘Who calls? who speaks?

What voice mysterious the silence breaks—

Is it a vision, or reality?’

How marble like her face! How pale her cheeks!

Yet fair, and in her glorious stature high,

Above the daughters of mortality.

V

And this was Lilith. And she came to him,

And looked into him with her dreamy eyes,

Till all his former life seemed old and dim,

A thing that had been once: and Paradise,

Its antique forest, floods, and choral skies,

Now faded quite away: or seemed to skim,

Like eagles on a bright horizon’s rim,

Darkly across his golden phantasies.

And he forgot the sunshine, and sweet flowers,

And he forgot all pleasant things that be,

The birds of Eden, and the winged powers

That visited, sometimes, its privacy:

And what to him was day, or day lit hours,

Or the moon shining on an open sea?

VI

So lived he. And she fed him with strange food,

And led him through the sparry corridors

Of central earth. How solemnly that flood

Went moaning by! How strange that multitude

Of moving shadows, and those strong ribbed doors,

Between whose earthquake riven chinks he viewed,

With gasping breath, the red and glowing stores

Whence the great Heart drives heat through all its pores.

And Lilith’s voice was ever in his ear,

With its delicious tones, that made him weep,

He knew not wherefore: and her forehead clear

Beamed like a star—yet made his spirit creep

With something of that undefined fear,

That shadows us, when love is over deep.

VII

This might not last. What thunder shakes the arch?

What light’ning, in its swift and terrible march,

Shatters the massy keystone? —Sudden light

Leaps down, and many a column stalactite

Is rent and shivered as a feeble larch.

Alas for Lilith! Shrieking with affright,

He bowed, and felt the hateful splendour parch

Her soul away: yet, ere she vanished quite,

‘Think of me sometime, Adam,’ murmured she,

‘Let me not perish, and my memory be

Lost and forgotten. Now farewell, farewell!

We have been happy—that is past, and we

May love no longer.’ Wakened from his spell,

He turned: —the sun was shining where she fell!

Quebec, 1839